Told to ‘shut child up’, mother shames air passenger on Facebook

London, Aug 19 (IANS) The mother of an eight-year-old disabled girl has shamed a fellow passenger on Facebook for yelling abuse at her daughter who had “a meltdown” mid-flight, the media reported.

In a Facebook post, Nicola Colenso stated that the “abusive” woman screamed “shut that child up” as her daughter Yasmin was crying on the flight from Ibiza to Manchester, telegraph.co.uk reported on Thursday.

The woman berated the couple in front of their four children and Rick Murray, Colenso’s partner, was allegedly branded as a “pr**k” for not keeping his daughter quiet.

Yasmin, who suffers from Sturge-Weber syndrome — a rare condition affecting the skin, brain and eyes, was later that night rushed to hospital as her condition worsened and her lips turned blue, Colenso was quoted as saying.

Colenso described the incident on the Jet2 flight in her post that has been shared more than 100,000 times on the social networking site.

“Dear lady on the Manchester-bound flight from Ibiza yesterday! We are sorry our daughter stopped you from getting your beauty sleep but clearly she was having a meltdown and was not feeling 100 per cent,” said Colenso in her post.

She also posted a photo of the woman pointing out that she wanted to raise awareness about the difficulties faced by children with disabilities when travelling.

“We were really shocked by the way she spoke to us. It was horrible,” Colenso noted, adding: “It was clear to anyone who looked that something wasn’t right with Yasmin. But even after explaining it to her calmly and politely, she gave no consideration to this.”

Yasmin’s battle with Sturge-Weber Syndrome has seen the little girl already go through more than 50 general anaesthetics.

In 2013, she underwent a nine-hour brain surgery to disconnect her left temporal, parietal and occipital lobes in a bid to reduce her 200 seizures a day. Now she has around 11-12, mostly at night.